Decoupaged Antique Mirror

Things you need for this project:

I have added all the items you need in the amazon Antique Mirror list

• Citristrip – You can find it in lowes or homedepot.
• Metal Scraper/Steel wool
• Muriatic acid
• Glasses
• Gloves
• Rag
• Brush
• Empty Spray bottle for acid
• Water hose
• Mirror spray paint in case of “Oops moments”
• Decoupage Paper
• Modge Podge

How to do it

Step1: Prepare yourself and the mirror

Make sure the mirror is cleaned and prepare a surface where you have proper ventilation and also prepare yourself with gloves to work on.

Step2: Draw the areas you want to etch

Make some marking as in how you want to do the etching to just have an idea.

Step3: Strip

Important Information: Usually any good quality mirrors have 3 layers of coating, one is the metal or bronze coat and then there is a slight silver lining and then its the glass. We want to strip all the layers and make it look like a see through glass for this aging process.

Some mirrors of bad quality may not have all these layers like the ones in dollar store. They strip really quick and sometimes dont need the acid too. So do a test run on a small patch before you do it on large scale.

Apply the Citristrip with a brush and let it sit for a while until we see bubbling happening on the bronze coat.

So here is the tricky part, for strong mirrors it takes more than an hour or two or sometimes overnight to strip the bronze coating and some mirrors are really quick and start to bubble soon. And even if it bubbles, some areas are always left unbubbled for those areas you just have to scrape it hard.

So if you see my mirror it did not bubble at all, But It did peel off when I scraped it.

Step4: Scrape

Once you see the bubbles popped up, start scraping the bronze layer. Like I said in some areas you just need to scrape hard or repeat to strip if its really hard.

Step5: Cross check and restrip if needed

Before you start working on the acid I want to cross check and make sure I have enough space to work with the acid, once you are pass this stage you have to do a whole lot of work to come back. Make sure you strip a little more area than you really need so that you play around with the randomness of the acid pattern.

Step6: Prep for Acid round

Before you start working on the acid, make sure you have your glasses and gloves on, have the acid poured into the empty spray bottle and keep your rug and water hose ready with water turned on. You can even do it in the laundry sink because you want to act really fast here or else you might end up with acid eating up more than what you need.

Step7: Acid

Spray the acid gently in the areas you want to age and just wait for a second and splash the water over it to clean it. Clean it with a dry cloth and check the aged patch you have got with it.

If you want more just keep repeating the process. You can also just spray a little acid on the cloth and wipe to remove small areas

In case you think you over dosed it, dont worry just spray the mirror paint over the area, wait for it dry and double coat. It will fix it to some level. I had an oops moment too and I fixed it a bit with the paint. My top left corner was over dosed so painted it back a little.

Step8: Decoupage Prep

Now comes the fun part, take our your colorful papers out keep them under the mirror and try out your placements before you glue them.

Step9: GLUE IT!!!

Once you are sure with the placement, just apply modge podge on to the paper directly. I noticed when you apply the modge over the mirror it leaves strokes when you see them from the front of it. So I have applied it from behind over the paper.

Step10: Apply coats and frame

Just apply more coats if needed to clear of the bubbles and frame it!!!